Jehovah said, Behold I am creating new heavens and a new earth (Isa. lxv 17).

And elsewhere in the same prophet:

As the new heavens and the new earth, which I am about to make, shall stand before me (Isa. lxvi 22).

In the Apocalypse:

I saw a new heaven and a new earth; the former heaven and the former earth have passed away (Rev. xxi 1).

And in Peter:

According to promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein shall dwell righteousness (2 Pet. iii 13).

It has not hitherto entered into the mind of any one to suppose otherwise than that by "heaven," in these places, is meant the visible heaven, that is, the whole firmament, with the sun, moon and stars; and that, by "earth," there, is meant the habitable earth, or the globe, and that these will perish at the day of the Last Judgment; when, nevertheless, by heaven, there, the angelic heaven is meant, and by earth, the Church. That by "earth," everywhere in the Prophetic Word, is meant the Church, has been fully shown in the APOCALYPSE REVEALED (n. 285). The reason why, by new heavens and a new earth, have hitherto been understood the visible heaven and the habitable earth, is because men have not known anything of the spiritual world, consequently not anything of the angelic heaven, nor anything of the prophetic sense, which carries and stores up in its bosom nothing else than spiritual things; and the spiritual thing relating to the earth is the Church. When, also, the angels, inasmuch as they are spiritual, look down into the earth, they see nothing at all of it, but only the Church with men.